The homelessness legislation

10 The homelessness legislation
11
3. The impact of the current legislation
on single homeless people
2.6 Duties
The local authority which accepts
the duty to a household owed the
main homelessness duty must secure
that suitable settled accommodation
becomes available to them, providing
suitable temporary accommodation
in the interim. In most cases the main
homelessness duty is discharged via
an offer of social housing, but changes
brought in under the Localism Act
(2011) enable local authorities to also
discharge this duty via a fixed-term
assured shorthold tenancy in the private
rented sector with a minimum term of 12
months so long as it meets certain other
conditions. This is often referred to as a
‘private rented sector offer’ (PRSO).
Applicants who are homeless, eligible for
assistance, and are in priority need but
are intentionally homeless are entitled to
short-term temporary accommodation
for such period to give them a
reasonable opportunity of securing
alternative accommodation (usually
28 days).
The intention of the current
homelessness legislation is to limit
entitlement to settled accommodation
to those households considered to
be most vulnerable and victims of
circumstances beyond their control.
However, a significant number of
homeless applicants, particularly single
people, have no right to accommodation
or adequate help to prevent or relieve
their homelessness, even if they are
sleeping rough.
Between April 2014 and March 2015
fewer than half (48% - 54,430) of those
who made a homelessness application
were owed the main homelessness
duty. 1 Overall, one quarter of applicants
(28,518) were found not to be homeless 2 ,
eight per cent (8,990) were deemed to be
intentionally homeless 3 , and a further 18
per cent (20,420) were considered not to
be in priority need so not owed the
main duty. 4
A greater proportion of applicants owed
the main homelessness duty are families
with dependent children compared to
single applicants. Of the applicants who
were owed the main duty in 2014/15,
72 per cent were households with
dependent children and only 22 per cent
were single applicants. 5
3.1 Assessing
vulnerability
Local authorities have discretion to
determine whether a single household
is considered sufficiently vulnerable
(based on the criteria set out above) to
be in priority need.
The test case that has played a key role
in how the vulnerability threshold was
applied was Pereira v Camden Council
(1998). The case gave rise to the ‘Pereira
Test’, which stated that a person is
vulnerable “if their circumstances are
such that they would suffer more when
homeless than ‘the ordinary homeless
person’ and would suffer an injury
or other detriment that the ordinary
homeless person would not.” Recent
cases further restricted this definition, to
For all other applicants, including
those who are homeless, eligible,
unintentionally homeless and have a
local connection but are not in priority
need, the local authority only has a duty
to provide advice and assistance.
1. Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) (2016), Statutory homelessness live tables,
Table 770: decisions.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid
5. DCLG (2016), Statutory homelessness live tables, Table 780: accepted household type.